Friday, February 12, 2016

F is for Focus

Margaret talks about focusing on characters

In short
romances the focus is inevitably on the two central characters, the heroine and
hero, the story of how they meet, the problems they encounter, their emotions,
the resolution, and the inevitable happy ending. It needs to be a good medium between narrative
and action. Too much narrative slows down the pace; readers soon get tired, and
perhaps even cast the book to one side before they’ve finished it – which is
the last thing any author wants. And too little doesn’t give enough
information. It’s all a matter of finding a suitable balance.

Flashbacks are good – so long
as they’re not too long and involved. No one wants to read what is not
important to the story, so again a happy medium needs to be found. The bare facts
perhaps, so that readers know the reason heroine or hero are behaving as they
do even though they don't know all the details. It’s sometimes good to leave things to the imagination.

It’s also important that secondary
characters are not allowed to take over. They should only be used when essential
to the story – to move it forward or reveal information that can add a twist. If
a secondary character does become important then perhaps it’s because they
deserve their own story – which happened to me when I wrote Rachel’s
Retribution, resulting in my book, Abby’s Bodyguard.